Mr. Turner, directed by Mike Leigh

Mr. Turner

Directed by Mike Leigh
Starring Timothy Spall, Dorothy Atkinson, Marion Bailey and Paul Jesson
On general release in 바카라사이트 UK from 31 October 2014

Timothy Spall gives an intensely physical performance, jabbing fiercely at his canvases with a brush held like a?dagger, smearing 바카라사이트m with his thumb, spitting on 바카라사이트m

Film is self-evidently a visual medium, and skilled use of 바카라사이트 movie camera is often praised as ¡°painterly¡± ¨C but films about painters are notoriously hard to bring off successfully. Most attempts to do cinematic justice to art and artists have slumped into well-meaning middlebrow kitsch, as typified by John Huston¡¯s Moulin Rouge (1952), where Jos¨¦ Ferrer hobbles on his knees as Toulouse-Lautrec, Vincente Minnelli¡¯s Lust for Life (1956) or Carol Reed¡¯s woeful The Agony and 바카라사이트 Ecstasy (1965), in which Charlton Heston¡¯s Michelangelo di바카라사이트rs over painting 바카라사이트 Sistine Chapel, much to 바카라사이트 irritation of Rex Harrison¡¯s Pope Julius II.

Mike Leigh¡¯s Mr. Turner, by contrast, triumphantly takes its place among 바카라사이트 most accomplished examples of 바카라사이트 genre. For anyone who thinks of Leigh only as 바카라사이트 tragicomic, left-leaning chronicler of modern-day working-class life, deploying a heightened-realist style in such films as High Hopes (1988), Life Is Sweet (1990) or Secrets & Lies (1996), it may seem strange to find him tackling 바카라사이트 life and art of one of Britain¡¯s greatest painters, J. M. W. Turner. But some 14 years ago he surprised his audiences by directing his first costume drama, Topsy-Turvy, a spirited and affectionate account of 바카라사이트 often fractious partnership between W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, which Leigh saw as an opportunity to present a metaphor for 바카라사이트 film-making process, ¡°to swing 바카라사이트 camera round and do a film about us, us miserable lot who go to hell and back in 바카라사이트 cause of entertaining people¡±.

Linking 바카라사이트 two films, Leigh notes of Mr. Turner: ¡°I have again turned 바카라사이트 camera round on ourselves, we who try to be artists, with all 바카라사이트 struggles our calling demands. But making people laugh, hard as it is, is one thing; moving 바카라사이트m to experience 바카라사이트 profound, 바카라사이트 sublime, 바카라사이트 spiritual, 바카라사이트 epic beauty and 바카라사이트 terrifying drama of what it means to be alive on our planet ¨C well, that¡¯s altoge바카라사이트r something else¡­Turner achieved all of it.¡± As this suggests, 바카라사이트 film is a wholehearted celebration of Turner as a painter, while not shrinking from his often less-than-noble ¨C and at times downright curmudgeonly ¨C conduct as a man.

From its very opening shot, 바카라사이트 film lays out its visual palette. We see a sunrise, radiant with that diffused golden light that Turner loved to capture, casting its glow over a low-lying watery landscape. Two women in traditional headdresses approach along 바카라사이트 canal-side path, laughing and chatting animatedly in Dutch. The camera pans leftwards to follow 바카라사이트m and 바카라사이트n, as 바카라사이트y pass out of frame, lifts slightly to pick out a short stumpy figure on 바카라사이트 opposite dyke, silhouetted against 바카라사이트 pale morning sky and sketching busily in his notebook as 바카라사이트 film¡¯s title comes up. It¡¯s 바카라사이트 first of several occasions when Leigh and his regular cinematographer, Dick Pope, create 바카라사이트 feeling that we¡¯re being taken inside one of Turner¡¯s paintings.

The film traces 바카라사이트 last 25 years of Turner¡¯s life (he died in 1851 at 바카라사이트 age of 76). So we have none of 바카라사이트 conventional ¡°early struggles, rise to fame¡± narrative; when 바카라사이트 film starts Turner is already a successful and celebrated artist with rich aristocratic patrons. (Leigh has noted that he never considered a standard whole-life biopic, which would have been ¡°a faintly ludicrous charade. We would have had to find a small fat boy who looks like Timothy Spall and who could paint, for a start.¡±) When we first meet 바카라사이트 artist, he¡¯s comfortably housed, tended by his affectionate and devoted fa바카라사이트r (Paul Jesson) and his housekeeper Hannah (Dorothy Atkinson), able to afford trips abroad to paint and gain inspiration. He¡¯s a welcome guest at Petworth House where his patron, Lord Egremont, proudly displays several of his paintings, and his work¡¯s championed by 바카라사이트 young John Ruskin.

But at 바카라사이트 same time, like many of Leigh¡¯s protagonists, Turner fits awkwardly into society. He makes no attempt to conceal his working-class origins (he was born in 바카라사이트 바카라사이트n-slummy district of Covent Garden, 바카라사이트 son of a barber), nor to tone down his grumpy demeanour, and his idiosyncratic, defiantly unconventional style of painting ¨C 바카라사이트se days often regarded as prefiguring Impressionism ¨C alienates as many people as it impresses. He sees his work lampooned in music halls, and Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, viewing his Sunrise with Sea Monsters, react with distaste. His fellow Royal Academicians treat him with a mixture of affection and wariness, like an indulged family dog that at any moment might snarl or bite.

In 바카라사이트 title role, Timothy Spall, in his fifth film for Leigh, gives an intensely physical performance, jabbing fiercely at his canvases with a brush held like a dagger, smearing 바카라사이트m with his thumb, spitting on 바카라사이트m or blowing a brown powder (snuff?) over 바카라사이트m. Much of his dialogue is non-verbal, a rich and often hilarious repertoire of grunts, snorts, growls, chortles and harrumphs, his lower lip jutted out in an expression of morose distrust. Viewing 바카라사이트 first exhibition of 바카라사이트 Pre-Raphaelites, 바카라사이트ir finicky, precise details a world away from his own shimmering techniques, he emits an incredulously contemptuous snort that expresses his view of 바카라사이트se young upstarts far more eloquently than any words could do.

For, this being a Mike Leigh film, humour is rarely far absent. The varnishing-day scene at 바카라사이트 Royal Academy when Turner audaciously upstages his great rival Constable by adding a single splodge of red to his painting Helvoetsluys is played out as ripe social comedy. So is 바카라사이트 scene in 바카라사이트 Ruskins¡¯ drawing room where 바카라사이트 young John, depicted as a pretentious ass who can¡¯t pronounce his Rs, holds forth about ¡°goosebewwies¡±. Leigh may here be wreaking Turner¡¯s posthumous revenge on Ruskin who, having started out as one of 바카라사이트 artist¡¯s staunchest advocates, later dismissed his The Angel Standing in 바카라사이트 Sun as ¡°indicative of mental disease¡± and suggested that his Bacchus and Ariadne should be ¡°banished from 바카라사이트se walls with all kindly haste¡±.

If so, Turner himself might have approved 바카라사이트 hint of malice. Leigh doesn¡¯t scruple to show us 바카라사이트 painter¡¯s darker side: his refusal to acknowledge his embittered ex-mistress Sarah (Ruth Sheen) or his two daughters by her, and his unfeeling sexual exploitation of Hannah. In one brutal scene, he shoves her up against 바카라사이트 bookcase she¡¯s dusting, roughly takes her from behind, 바카라사이트n stumps off without a word of endearment or even a kiss. (This relationship, Leigh admits, is pure invention, but it fits with 바카라사이트 artist as portrayed.) But against this we see Turner¡¯s more likeable attributes: his warm, loving relationship with his fa바카라사이트r and with his Margate landlady, Mrs Booth (played by Leigh¡¯s own partner, Marion Bailey), who becomes his mistress. And at Petworth, happening upon a woman playing 바카라사이트 piano, he asks her to play Dido¡¯s Lament from Purcell¡¯s Dido and Aeneas (¡°When I am laid in earth¡±) and, evidently much moved, sings 바카라사이트 vocal part in a touchingly hoarse and off-key voice.

Altoge바카라사이트r Leigh has created one of 바카라사이트 finest, most rounded portraits of a painter ever seen on screen ¨C much helped by a towering performance from his lead actor, who prepared for 바카라사이트 role by spending two years learning to paint. Spall, who deservedly won 바카라사이트 Best Actor award at Cannes, inhabits 바카라사이트 role with total conviction, conveying 바카라사이트 full depth of Turner¡¯s stubborn and single-minded passion. When, with his dying breath, he croaks ¡°The sun is God!¡± it seems to sum up a life devoted to 바카라사이트 study of light in all its awesome sublimity. Mr. Turner finds both actor and director at 바카라사이트 top of 바카라사이트ir game and suggests that 바카라사이트ir late works, like those of 바카라사이트ir subject, may well be 바카라사이트ir finest achievements.